Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Why Are Democrats Richer Than Republicans?

This is a piece I found while answering a comment today. I found it on the European-American Blog which offers a view from an "international perspective". It is about why are Democrats richer than Republicans. It is crazy to see their view and explanation of this. Read the whole thing below of click on the link:

...And here is another thing: On average, Republicans are poorer than Democrats! Just go figure. When it comes to economics, it should be pretty simple. There are two basic political attitudes, and you would expect them to correlate with how rich a person is: you would expect both the rich and the poor to vote their pocketbook. The rich would vote for lower taxes and for the government to butt out, i.e. Republican, conservative. The poor would vote for more re-distribution of wealth, more government services, i.e. Democratic, liberal. But, lo and behold, it’s the opposite! Even though there is a lot of overlap, the statistics are clear: The average income of the 100 million or so Republicans is LOWER than that of the 150 million or so Democrats!

This oddity can be explained, of course. The first thing we should understand is the enormous regional variation in democratic and republican support. There are red states and there are blue states. And as it so happens, “blue America,” (E.g the East Coast and my beloved Left Coast) is more urban and richer than “red America,” and it is also way more liberal. And as we all know, the Deep South has become the bastion of Republicanism. And of course the Deep South is the country’s poorest region. The other red states are mostly in the Rocky Mountains and in the Midwest - again, rural, poor, and culturally conservative. So at the aggregate level, richer states are more democratic and poorer states are more republican.

In an article titled, “Rich state, poor state, red state, blue state,” (Quarterly Journal of Political Science, Sept. 2007), Andrew Gelman et.al. Reconcile the facts I just mentioned with our common-sense expectation that poorer folks should be voting Democratic: Indeed, within states, that is precisely what happens. Furthermore, the authors write, the “slope (statistical jargon for “relationship”) is steepest in poor, rural areas. That is, in poor rural areas, the poor are much more likely to vote for the Republican candidate.” In other words, the authors, write, “income matters more in “red America” than in “blue America...For example, in rich states such as Connecticut, income has a very low correlation with vote preference.”

But I get back to my starting point: Overall, it is America’s poor who elect people like George W. Bush, and America’s (somewhat) rich(er) who elect people like Obama. And we just saw one reason for this: the poorest regions are also those that are the most conservative - culturally (red states).

In addition, consider the following factors:1. Education: Those with a college education are more liberal than those without.2. The stars of popular culture (Hollywood, pro athletes) are both rich and liberal.3. Public employees at the managerial level, politicians, lawyers, all make good money, and of course they are overwhemingly Democrats (think of Marxist university presidents making over a million a year).4. Brainwashing: Republicans, the media and other opinion leaders have been able to divert people’s attention away from economics and towards cultural issues - abortion, gay issues, religion, flag waiving, race, etc. Smokescreens, you might say. Come to think of it, this is related to #1: It’s easier to brainwash dumb and uneducated people.

So here you have it: At the local level, Americans may vote their pocket book interests, but as a nation, they frequently do the opposite. As a result, it’s the little old flag-waiving ladies in tennis shoes who live on $20,000 a year, who help Wall Street to perpetuate the plutocracy which is so unfair to them. Isn’t this aggravating?

First of all, this story came from another blog that I just crossed posted. Go after them if you don;t agree or understand it. Second of all, your links date to 2000 and 2006 and have nothing to do with this story. This story was about how many MORE people who are rich, are actually Liberal. Liberal millionaires actually outnumber Conservative millionaires. The reason why the GOP has gotten stuck with the stigma that if you are rich, you must be a Republican, is because WE believe in Capitalism and making money and being secure. Liberals are known for taking and spending money and not investing while profiting off of taking that money from people like me who scrape by.

Liberals are more educated and richer than republicans by a significant margin. The mayorship of conservatives who claim to be "taxpayers" are actually older retired people who live of social security and don't pay taxes anyways. The only tax they pay is the 10% to the reverend at their church. When polled, republicans who are usually less educated claim they make more money than they actually do.

And those retirees, by a large margin, they are veterans as well and fought for this country. They aren't called "The Greatest Generation" for nothing.

I'm a Republican and I don't claim to be rich, has never been rich, and other people I know who are Conservatives are the same as well. At least I'm not a Liberal who thinks they know EVERYTHING and walks around with their nose in the air at people, plays the race card at any chance they get and if you study the history of the Democratic party, they don't care about the little people or minorities. All they want is YOUR money.